


think i’ve mistaken you for somebody else

by CheapLemonIceLolly



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Meaningless Sex, messed up people getting through it together, not a very healthy relationship, or is it???, unrequited background relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 02:49:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15475911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheapLemonIceLolly/pseuds/CheapLemonIceLolly
Summary: Connor’s having trouble getting used to seeing a Strome in his colours on his ice again.





	think i’ve mistaken you for somebody else

**Author's Note:**

> The title is, of course, from Foolish Games by Jewel, which is also kind of a mood for this story.
> 
> ...Ryan seems like he’d be a lot nicer than this in real life, but here we go anyway! I posted this anonymously at first because I liked it but was a bit unsure of that particular characterisation, but what the hell, may as well own it.

Connor’s having trouble getting used to seeing a Strome in his colours on his ice again.

They’re not even that similar looking, really, Ryan and Dylan. Maybe a little something about the mouth, the way they both laugh. The way Ryan’s hands look more familiar than they ought to. But mostly he doesn’t look like Dylan at all. He’s shorter, pointier, more compact. There’s nothing soft about him, no messy curls or big sleepy brown eyes; he’s got a thin hatchet face and a sharp nose and eyes more piercing than they are warm. 

But all the sharpness is good, in a way. Like a reminder.

It feels right, for instance, when Connor sees him follow some dude into the washroom at a club one night, post game, slanting a look over one shoulder to make sure none of the guys notice him going. When he reappears half an hour later and slides back into the booth with a fresh beer, all smiles like he hasn’t got a kiss-swollen mouth and fucking beard rash on his neck.

Connor can’t imagine Dylan doing any of that. Not with a guy. But they’re not even that alike, so he doesn’t know why he’s even thinking about what Dylan would do while he watches Ryan’s hands toy with the label on his bottle of beer.

He also doesn’t know what possesses him to lean over when the other guys aren’t paying attention and say, “Got a little something on your neck, there, bud.”

Ryan glances at him without turning his head. His profile’s as knife sharp as the shrewd look he gives Connor out of just the corner of his eye.

“Sorry, it doesn’t run in the family,” he says lightly, so lightly it doesn’t even register as a weird thing to say until a few seconds later. Connor feels his face go hot.

“What?” he says, slightly strangled, wiping his suddenly sweaty palms on his jeans under the table. Ryan looks at him properly, then, and smiles his nice big brother smile, the one Connor’s more used to.

“Nothing,” he says. “Ignore me. But whatever you think you saw…”

Connor frowns. “I know what I saw.”

“...There’s usually a whole don’t ask, don’t tell thing in this league, you know.”

And like, yeah, Connor’s been a gay hockey player for a fucking minute, he’s aware of how things work. He just didn’t know he wasn’t the only one around here. It’s a novelty, or something.

“Sure,” he shrugs, looking away. “Whatever. Sorry.”

But they’re there for another hour, and Connor’s brain won’t leave it alone. His eyes keep drifting back to the shape of Ryan’s hands on the table top, the bright flash of his laugh, and he keeps near-compulsively cataloguing the ways he and Dylan are different, like a list of reasons why…

Why it would be okay. Why it’s not weird and creepy, because they’re not even all that similar, not really.

They’re both on the way out of the club when Connor’s internal lists reach some kind of balancing point, and he touches the back of Ryan’s hand and sways in close to his ear.

“What if I was asking, though,” he says. “ _And_ telling.”

The look Ryan gives him is weird. It looks like pity, or scorn, or both, but it’s considering too, and Connor tries to stand his ground even though his cheeks are burning and he feels like a dumb kid in a way he thought he left behind years ago. Ryan doesn’t say anything for a long time, but he doesn’t _leave_ either.

“What if,” he says at last. “Alright. Your place or mine?”

*

Ryan’s still technically living in a hotel while he finds something more permanent and Connor still technically has a housemate, so they go to Ryan’s, and it’s...it’s a hotel room. It’s cold and sterile and grey, and as soon as Ryan closes the door behind them Connor forgets what to do with his hands. He just kind of stands there, awkward and stiff, until Ryan takes pity on him and steps into his space, curling one hand around the back of his neck and pulling him down into a kiss.

And that’s it, it’s that easy. He can open his mouth and slide his hands under Ryan’s shirt, grind back against him when he slots one thigh between Connor’s and backs him up towards the bed. He can let Ryan show him what to do.

Ryan’s sweeter to him than he was at the club, and it’s easy to see Dylan in him then, when he’s guiding Connor out of his own uncertainty, making sure he feels relaxed enough to know what he’s doing. That’s Dylan all over, taking charge in that kind of easy, friendly way that doesn’t feel like being pushed around.

Except then Ryan’s pressing Connor down onto the end of the bed and kneeling in between his spread thighs, and Dylan wouldn’t ever do that, wouldn’t look up at Connor through his eyelashes while he takes the head of his dick into his mouth, wouldn't hold his gaze while the suction hollows his cheeks, or hum in satisfaction as he takes him in deeper.

Connor tips his head back and closes his eyes. No. Dylan would definitely never do this.

It’s some time later when Ryan sits up on the side of the bed, showing Connor the back of one shoulder, and says, “Okay. You need me to call you an uber, or…”

“Wow,” Connor says, with a flat little laugh. “Not even five minutes to enjoy the afterglow, huh?”

Ryan rolls his shoulders, making a face. “I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea about what’s happening here.”

“I’m not a _kid_ ,” Connor says hotly, and Ryan smiles and shakes his head.

“No. But you kind of are to me, still.”

It’s fucking bullshit, though, because it’s not even like Ryan _knew_ him when he was a kid. Just heard about him a lot, probably. What he actually means is that he associates Connor with Dylan, and he’s going to think of _Dylan_ as a kid until the day he dies.

“Cool,” Connor says irritably, “so it’s back to just being your little brother’s dumb kid friend now, right?”

He doesn’t know why he said it like that. He’s literally Ryan’s captain, nothing about their normal relationship is _dumb kid brother friend_ anything. He doesn’t know why he’d be the one to bring Dylan up seemingly out of nowhere right now, here, when they’ve just...

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on, Connor,” he says, standing up and pulling his jeans on as he goes. “We both know I’m not the one thinking about my brother, here.”

*

After that, Connor figures that’s it.

Ryan doesn’t treat him any differently, at least, so Connor follows his lead and just pretends nothing happened. But it’s only a few weeks before Connor answers the door to his hotel room on the road and finds Ryan looking all kind of sheepish in the hallway, hands in his pockets.

“Hey,” he says, with this lopsided smile that Connor watched Dylan use on girls in Erie about a hundred times. “Did you want to hang out?”

“Um,” Connor says. He licks his lips and glances over his shoulder. “I, uh. I have a roommate.”

Which definitely isn’t no, just...he feels like Darnell might have some questions if he comes out of the shower and finds Connor and Ryan making out or whatever.

Ryan sighs like he wants to roll his eyes but he’s trying not to. His smile turns kind of bitter and sardonic, and it’s like that jarring hint of Dylanness in his face vanishes; they look nothing alike again. Which is honestly a relief when the next words out of his mouth are, “Yeah, I know. I don’t, and I’m two doors down, so. Are you coming, or not?”

Connor goes, obviously.

Afterwards Ryan doesn’t even rush to get dressed and kick him out right away, so like...that’s nice. He just pulls the bed sheets up to his waist and offers Connor a candy bar from the minibar.

“Uh, I don’t really eat that stuff during the season,” he says, awkward. Ryan gives him a long look and then shakes his head.

“Of course you don’t,” he says. “I’m your only vice, eh?”

Connor’s not sure he’d put it like that. He’s not _completely_ soulless, whatever people say, he just takes his work and his conditioning seriously, that’s all. And hooking up with someone two times doesn’t really feel like a vice. He doesn’t exactly feel like he’s the one being indulged this time, anyway.

“Something like that,” he says. “Anyway, not that I’m complaining but...I didn’t get the feeling last time we were gonna do that again.”

“Yeah, well,” Ryan says around a mouthful of chocolate. “I got a bad phone call just now. I needed a distraction.” Connor opens his mouth to ask and Ryan shoots a tired look at him. “It’s not a family thing, don’t make it weird.”

“I wasn’t—“

“There’s this wedding,” he says, frowning down at his candy bar. Connor’s not sure why he’s suddenly opening up, but he doesn’t say anything, just listens. “In the summer. I don’t want to go, it’s going to be fucking awful, but...you know. I owe it to him.” He cuts a meaningful look at Connor and then looks away again, his profile a sharp, tense line. “The _groom_.”

Oh, Connor thinks. So maybe he’s not the only one with a doomed crush on a straight friend. At least he can be sure his won’t get married any time soon.

“Shit,” he says. It feels hollow, a flat little sound in an empty room. He feels for him, truly, but Connor’s shit at comforting his actual friends as it is, and he and Ryan aren’t friends. “Sorry, man. That sucks.”

“Yeah,” Ryan shrugs bitterly like, what can you do. “Thank god for meaningless sex, right?”

*

They sure have plenty of that.

Although… Connor’s not sure how meaningless it really is, with the way Ryan snipes at him almost constantly about the whole Dylan thing, sharp and just shy of mean. Sometimes not that shy at all. Sometimes it feels like he’s trying to get back at Connor for something someone else did. And it’s weird, because it reminds Connor where he is, who he’s really with, but it also makes it harder to ever fully get Dylan out of his mind.

It’s not friends with benefits because they’re not quite friends, but it’s not like it’s hate sex either. It’s just convenient, safer than hooking up with strange guys in bars and easier than trying to actually date with any degree of anonymity in Edmonton. If there’s a bit of an edge to it, to the way Ryan talks to him and increasingly to the way he talks back, well Connor can handle that.

Maybe he likes it, a bit. Or...not _likes_ it, but feels like he deserves it.

He wonders if Ryan knows he’s basically making sure his brother keeps hanging over them, though. Like a shadow Connor can almost touch, but not quite.

Maybe that’s what makes him ask, as he’s taking his jacket off on the way into Ryan’s apartment:

“Are you. Um. Are you going home for Christmas?”

Ryan tenses up, and Connor immediately wishes he hadn’t said anything. Ryan might bring up Dylan almost constantly when they’re together, like a prod to poke him with, but he’s so defensive when Connor even hints at acknowledging his existence. Of course maybe he shouldn’t have brought it up before they’ve even had sex.

“Yes,” Ryan says, focusing on untying his tie and fixedly not looking at him. “You know that, obviously. And before you ask, I’m not passing any love notes from my fuckbuddy to my fucking brother, so--”

“I’m not asking you to,” Connor snaps. “I was just making conversation, jesus.”

“Yeah, well,” Ryan sneers, actually sneers, lip curling and everything. “I’ll pass on your warm regards to the family or what the fuck ever.”

Connor actually was going to tell him to say Merry Christmas to Trish and Chris, because that’s just being nice, being friendly to people who’ve been kind to him when he was a kid, but now the well-wishes taste like dirt in his mouth. He feels humiliated and a little gross, like...Dylan’s always made him feel welcome in his family, but Ryan makes him feel like a creep for ever wanting to be.

“Just…” he bites his lip. “Don’t tell him, alright? About this.”

Ryan stares at him. “Tell him what, exactly? That I’ve been letting you pretend I’m him while I fuck you? Why would I _ever_ tell him that?”

“I’m not—“ Connor splutters, “I don’t _do that_. Is that what you...fuck off.”

“Okay,” says Ryan, turning away. “Sure.”

“I _don’t_.” He grips his jacket in both hands, clenching hard enough that his fingers hurt. “Why are you fucking _like_ this? I know you’re not actually this much of a dick.”

Ryan smiles over his shoulder at him, sharp and full of teeth. “I thought you came here for dick.”

Connor doesn’t know what kind he means. He’s probably right either way.

*

“Do you ever think we shouldn’t be doing this?”

It’s a pretty fucking wild time to ask, Connor thinks, since he’s still balls-deep in Connor’s ass, and Connor’s been staring at his hand on the floor next to his face for the last ten? Twenty minutes? He’s lost count, trying not to think about Dylan. It turns out trying not to think about something is the surest way to make sure you can’t stop thinking about it.

It’s Ryan’s fault for saying what he said before about Connor pretending. He’s not doing it on purpose.

God, it’s still so fucked up.

“Um, no?” Connor lies. He winces as Ryan pulls out and climbs off him; the weird chill, empty feeling will pass in a second, but not the uneasy guilt, like a cold weight in his belly. “Why?”

“I mean,” Ryan flops onto the carpet beside him and props himself up on his elbows. He’s flushed all over, breathless, and Connor wants to reach out and touch him but he doesn’t. His fucking knees hurt. “Not to harp on about it, but you are in love with my brother. Don’t you think that makes this kind of weird?

He’s never put it that plainly before, but there doesn’t seem to be any point denying it.

“I don’t see what that has to do with you,” Connor says. “Unless you want me to be in love with you instead.”

“Christ,” Ryan laughs. Which would be insulting, except that’s pretty much what Connor thought anyway. They’re both otherwise occupied in that sense.

“That’s what I thought,” Connor says. “Anyway, you can go find someone else any time you want, I’m not stopping you.”

It’s cruel, because Connor knows what _is_ stopping him, if not exactly who. But Ryan seems calmer now than before, like he managed to fuck some of his bitterness out or something, and he just laughs again.

“True enough. How’re your knees?”

Connor rolls onto his back, wincing, and stretches his legs out. It’s cold on the floor. “Fucking killing me. The bed would’ve been softer, you know.”

Ryan grins at him. “Can’t have you getting too comfortable around here.”

Connor feels like he has whiplash, sometimes, trying to read Ryan’s moods. Trying to ride the swing from borderline contempt to this kind of relaxed, friendly chirping, easy and almost fond.

“Do you even like me?” he sighs. He didn’t mean it to sound so plaintive but he refuses to be embarrassed. It’s a good fucking question, isn’t it?

Ryan gives him this long, considering look, like he’s contemplating the answer to that for the very first time. Connor supposes he might be, come to think of it. Maybe he just needs someone to be awful to the same way Connor, on some level, wants someone to be awful to him.

“Hm,” he says eventually. “Sometimes. Sometimes you remind me of...well, of someone else. Not always in a good way.”

“But not always in a bad way,” Connor suggests, looking up at the ceiling.

“Not always.”

He’s been wondering for a while who Ryan’s guy is, about to get married and all. This feels...not like a hint, but another piece of the puzzle at least. He’s got his suspicions. But he’s not going to push it.

“Does he know?” he asks. “How you feel about him?”

Ryan snorts. “No,” he says flatly. It feels like there’s a lot behind that one word, but he doesn’t elaborate and Connor doesn’t ask. 

Ryan doesn’t bother asking him if Dylan knows.

Connor sits up, looking around the floor for his pants. He spots them tossed over the back of the couch, just out of reach, but before he gets up he looks over at Ryan, at the tight unhappy line of his lips and the crease between his eyebrows. It’s a little impulsive, maybe, but Connor leans down and kisses the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t tell him,” he says.

*

Dylan was actually really sweet about it.

It was after the draft, right after, and Connor was half out of his mind with the mixed emotion and exhaustion of getting drafted and doing like eight million interviews and being photographed from every angle and who knows what else. And he’d just thought...it’s now or never.

Looking back now, he doesn’t know what he expected. For Dylan to, what, stare deep into his eyes and completely change in an instant? For him to say, _holy shit, I never even thought of being gay for you before, but now you’ve brought it up…_

No. That’s not how anything works.

What he actually said was just…all the right things. Like _I love you like a brother_ and _I’ll support you no matter what_ , but also, _I’m sorry I just don’t...I like girls, you know?_

Connor had thought, _that doesn’t mean anything, you can like both, you can like everything_ , but nobody who ever liked everything needed someone else to tell them it was possible, so he didn’t say it. Just forced a smile and went, “Yeah, it’s not...that’s fine. I just wanted you to know.”

Which was bullshit. He wishes now, more than anything, that Dylan didn’t know. But it’s not really a confession you can take back.

*

It’s a long season, but not long enough, and Connor’s fucking tired.

He’s not going back to Toronto right away, but he’s packed most of his stuff. Feels like he spends the season living out of a suitcase anyway, so it doesn’t take that long. He finds himself at Ryan’s place almost by accident, and it’s not like there’s any real affection between them, but he feels a bit lost at the thought of not seeing him until September, like losing a security blanket or a safety net or something.

It’s stupid, the idea that he’s come to rely on someone who barely even likes him most of the time. But there it is.

Anyway, he’s not actually snooping when he sees the Save the Date card. He’s just in Ryan’s kitchen looking for a drink of water when he sees it there, stuck to the fridge with a cheesy souvenir magnet that looks like the Statue of Liberty.

_Save the Date  
John and Aryne are getting married!  
Invitations to follow._

It’s not _proof_ of anything. Lots of people get married in the summer, Ryan could easily have more than one wedding to go to. But then he walks into the kitchen and sees Connor looking at the card on the fridge, and his whole body goes rigid.

So. That’s probably proof enough.

“Make yourself at home,” Ryan says coldly.

Connor’s instinct is to apologise, but he stops himself just in time. It’s not like he’s _done_ anything. It’s not like it’s the first time he’s been in Ryan’s apartment; if he didn’t want Connor to know he’s pining for John Fucking Tavares he could’ve just put the damn card away.

Of course, then he wouldn’t be able to torture himself with it, or have an excuse to take his feelings out on Connor. So Connor doesn’t apologise. Instead he says:

“Have you picked out a gift yet?”

Ryan actually looks shocked. Like he didn’t think Connor had it in him to be vicious. He doesn’t even say anything, just stares at him, and it feels like an entire season of self-flagellating resentment turns in on itself in Connor’s gut. 

“So what is it with you,” he says, “some kind of authority fetish? Or are you just really into people who’re better at hockey than you are?”

“Shut up,” Ryan says, a crease appearing between his eyebrows. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bet you wouldn’t talk to your last captain like that,” Connor presses. Ryan looks like he wants to hit something and Connor feels weirdly, savagely triumphant.

“I’m serious, _Davo_ ,” he says, leaning mercilessly on the nickname; it’s meant to hurt him with its familiarity but Connor feels above it all, somehow. “Back off.”

“Make me,” Connor shoots back, and Ryan’s on him before the words are even out of his mouth, slamming his back into the fridge door and kissing the retort back behind his teeth with a kind of desperation that’s almost…

Almost sad, if Connor were to think about it too much, so he decides not to think about it, focuses instead on getting the upper hand and pinning Ryan back against the island bench.

They have angry, messy, biting sex against the kitchen counter, and it’s just the right side of painful with Ryan digging his fingernails into Connor’s back, probably while he stares at that fucking save the date card over his shoulder, and Connor…

Connor doesn’t think about Dylan even once.

*

They don’t really talk over the summer, but Ryan Skypes Connor from Tavares’ wedding - well, from his hotel room after the reception - and Connor tactfully doesn’t point out how wrecked he looks, coming down from messy drunk and red-eyed like he’s been crying. He just takes his pants off and gets on the bed, and provides the distraction Ryan needs until he comes all over himself in some anonymous country bed and breakfast. It’s weird and kind of tragic and definitely fucked up, but it feels very them all the same.

Connor finds, strangely, that he missed him.

“Why are you still there?” Connor asks him, still chasing his own orgasm while Ryan holds the phone up to show him the length of his body, the come on his stomach. “Why didn’t you just go home after?”

Ryan makes an irritated little sound, a bit more than a sigh, and looks away from the camera for a second. “John wanted me here,” he says eventually, through gritted teeth. “There’s some breakfast thing tomorrow, for family and,” his throat makes a dry little clicking sound as he swallows, “close friends.”

Connor bites back a laugh.

“Well, look on the bright side,” Ryan says, throwing his free arm across his face, and Connor starts working his hand faster, because he wants to get this finished so he can go to sleep. “At least when it’s your turn to watch the love of your life marry someone else, I’ll be there in person for this part.”

It blindsides Connor like a slap in the face.

“Oh fuck off,” he gasps, and comes, just like that. More out of surprise than anything.

He drops his phone on the bed and rolls over, covering his face with his hands. He doesn’t know how to feel. It should hurt, the idea of seeing Dylan marry some pretty blonde girl with an Arizona tan and a lifestyle blog or whatever. And it just...doesn’t.

It feels a little sad, to picture it, a little bittersweet. But _the love of your life_ just seems...empty. Kind of silly, even. Like, he’s twenty one. He’s got a hell of a lot of life ahead of him.

“Sorry,” Ryan says, after a moment. “I shouldn’t‘ve… that was messed up.”

Connor glances over at the phone next to him, showing a blank white expanse of hotel ceiling like Ryan’s tossed it onto the bed beside him too.

“Yeah,” Connor agrees, not moving his own face into the frame. “Tell me about the wedding.”

He kind of drifts while Ryan talks, because he doesn’t really care about John Tavares’ wedding at all, but he can sense that Ryan wants to talk about it and maybe...maybe he does care about that, a bit. He likes the sound of Ryan’s voice. He used to think that was because he sounds like Dylan, and maybe that’s part of it, the familiar shape to his words. But it’s different, slower, more measured, and nice to listen to in its own ways too.

He just wishes he didn’t sound so sad.

“I’m sorry,” Connor says, once it seems like Ryan’s talked himself out. “About the whole...love of your life thing.”

Ryan makes a mirthless little noise that might be a laugh. He doesn’t say anything for a while.

“Obviously…” he says at last, and he sounds like he’s choosing the words very carefully, “obviously I want my brother to be happy and get married and all that shit, if he wants. And obviously he...matters more to me than you do.”

Connor nods, forgetting he’s not on screen and wondering where Ryan’s going with this.

“But...but when he does,” he says slowly, “I hope it’s not like this. For you.”

They’re both silent, but Connor can tell Ryan hasn’t hung up, because he can hear him breathing over the phone, slow and uneven. Connor wonders if he’s crying again and trying not to let him hear. He folds his hands together on his stomach and just lies there for a long time, looking up at the ceiling and listening to Ryan breathe, and feeling every breath like something tugging at his own chest.

“Thanks,” he says at last. “I think...I think maybe it won’t be. If you’re there.”

Ryan just laughs.


End file.
